The present invention relates to an improved method and system for retrieving and acting on information elements in a computer network.
Many users access the World Wide Web through low-bandwidth connections, resulting in slow receipt of web pages (i.e., xe2x80x9cthe response time problemxe2x80x9d). Even though bandwidth is expected to grow in coming years, the file size of multimedia and virtual reality objects will most likely grow at least as fast as the increase in bandwidth. Therefore, from a user""s perspective, the response time problem will not go away.
Current web browsers exacerbate the response time problem because they retrieve the objects on a Web page in the sequence in which they are listed in a web file that defines the web page (e.g., an HTML file). Since the objects in most web files are not sequentially ordered within the file on the basis of their relative importance to the other objects in the file, current web browsers will not retrieve web objects in the order of their relative importance. For example, a web page often starts with a headerbar that is comparatively unimportant and should be downloaded last. Using today""s browsers, however, the headerbar would instead be downloaded first.
Embodiments of the present invention offer a more flexible approach to ameliorating the response time problem by downloading web objects based on a priority attribute associated with each object reference in the web file.
Embodiments of the present invention provide an improved method and system for acting on information elements in a computer network. In a preferred embodiment, the information elements are web objects referenced in an HTML file. For example, a web object may be, but is not limited to, text, a graphical user interface element, an image file, an audio file, an applet, or other computer code. xe2x80x9cActing onxe2x80x9d the information element typically includes, but is not limited to, displaying the text, displaying the graphical user interface element, displaying the image file, playing the audio file, executing the applet, or executing other computer code.
In the preferred embodiment of the invention, the method retrieves a web file and sorts one or more web object references according to a priority attribute associated with each web object reference. After ranking the web object references by priority, the method then retrieves each web object in the order that their references were ranked. After receiving a web object, a user acts upon the web object in the appropriate manner. By using the steps of the preferred method, more important objects are retrieved before less important objects, thus allowing the user to act upon the more important objects sooner than the user could have acted on the important objects using methods available in the prior art.
In another embodiment, the web object references are sorted using a two-step process. In the first step, the web object references are ordered into an initial list and are assigned a sequence number according to the sequence of their appearance in the file. The list is then reordered by descending priority level as a primary sort key and by ascending sequence number as a secondary sort key. In this way objects with a higher priority will be sorted to the top of the list and objects with the same priority will be sorted such that the objects referenced early in the web file are sorted above those objects referenced later in the file.
In yet another embodiment, the web objects are retrieved in parallel in order to decrease retrieval time. First, the method determines whether at least one web object is currently being retrieved. If an object is currently being retrieved then the following steps are preferably followed to facilitate parallel retrieval of another web object. The method obtains an indication of an available rate of incoming bandwidth to the client computer and also obtains an indication of an available rate of outgoing bandwidth to the server computer storing the web object. The method then determines a minimum, rate of the available incoming bandwidth and the available outgoing bandwidth. The method then accepts data associated with the next information element at a rate corresponding to a selected increment over the minimum rate. In this way, the overall rate of retrieval is increased.
The detailed descriptions which follow are presented largely in terms of methods and symbolic representations of operations on data bits within a computer. These method descriptions and representations are the means used by those skilled in the data processing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art.
A method is here, and generally, conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of steps leading to a desired result. These steps require physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It proves convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or the like. It should be bourne in mind, however, that all of these and similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities.
Useful machines for performing the operations of the present invention include general purpose digital computers or similar devices. The general purpose computer may be selectively activated or reconfigured-by a computer program stored in the computer. A special purpose computer may also be used to perform the operations of the present invention. In short, use of the methods described and suggested herein is not limited to a particular computer configuration.